


our own private hells

by princesskay



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Season/Series 02, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:40:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23839261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princesskay/pseuds/princesskay
Summary: Holden told himself that it doesn’t hurt that Bill barely trusts him anymore. It’s a two-way street after all - he’s done everything in his power to conceal the severity of his panic disorder from Bill, and he figures they’re even. Divorces and pills, scattered relationships and an inability to form new ones. It’s all equally humiliating. They’re both allowed their own private hells, their solitary confinement, their bitter loneliness.Holden's costly decision to go on consult without his medication triggers a string of events beyond his control - even a reconciliation he hadn't thought possible after Atlanta.
Relationships: Holden Ford/Bill Tench
Comments: 12
Kudos: 107





	our own private hells

**Author's Note:**

> based on an anonymous prompt from tumblr that asked for Bill finding out about Holden not taking his medication. Thanks for the inspo 💛

It starts gradually and then all at once, one loose pebble at the top of a mountain that triggers an avalanche. One minute, he’s sitting in the conference room of the Sheridan, Nevada police station, reviewing photographs from the crime scene with only the generalized hum of anxiety that always lingers in the back of his mind, and the next, he’s stumbling into the bathroom in the middle of a vicious panic attack that leaves him wheezing and sinking to the ground just inside the stall. 

He can’t remember what started it. The images in front of him? That existential dread that they’ll never be able to save everyone? Or had it simply been Bill’s hand on his shoulder, touching him, laying bare is rampant insecurities? The difference hardly matters now that he’s staggering into the bathroom, blinking against the bright, paneled lights, knees going weak as he makes his way to the first open stall. 

While he collapses to the floor, he manages to flip the lock shut, giving himself a flimsy layer of privacy between the panic attack and the outside world. The tile is cold as he sinks to his backside next to the toilet. The bathroom smells like urine and disinfectant, an odor that increases the lower he sinks to the floor, but he can’t focus on how unsanitary his current position is. 

His hand dips into his pocket, an instinctive reflex that’s become ingrained after close to a year of living with this condition. He already knew his fingers were going to come up empty, but he does it anyway, a knee jerk reaction. 

He’d left his pills at home, certain that after a stretch of three weeks with no panic attacks that he could handle one trip out of state without relying on the medication. He thought it was a pattern he could trust, but he should have known - panic doesn’t follow any pattern or discernible logic. He isn’t in control, and as the case progresses, it feels more and more like he’s in the passenger’s seat of a spinning out car, unable to pull the wheel under control and get himself back on the road. 

That sense of surreal disconnect strikes him now with the crystal clear realization that he shouldn’t have tried to go without the pills, although it should have come much sooner. The first day they arrived here, he had a near miss at the dump site. They were standing in the baking, desert heat, everyone boiling in their own sweat. He’d been surrounded by the lead detective and the chief of police on one side and Bill on the other, and it had been hot - too hot to breathe. He had asked to excuse himself before discreetly rushing back to the car as quickly as he could manage before he embarrassed himself in front of his professional acquaintances. Mustering the strength to shove all of his panic back down into its little, compartmentalized boxes, he’d told himself it was going to stay a near miss; he was going to be fine. 

But he’s crouched on the bathroom floor.  _ He isn’t fine. He isn’t fine.  _

Dropping his head down between his knees, Holden tries to count to ten, and breathe deeply in through his nose and out through his mouth. If he’d had his pills, this episode would have been over in minutes. Instead, he’s suffering through the peak of it, watching the panic crest inside him, growing stronger, threatening to suffocate him. His chest shudders with painful, insufficient gulps of air, producing a sharp wheezing that does nothing to ease his blazing nerves. The pain is easy to confuse with a heart attack the way he’d done the first time, but he knows better now - he just has to put his head down and get through it. 

As the worst of it tapers off, Holden hears the bathroom door squeak open. His limbs freeze and his eyes squeeze shut as fresh panic sparks in his veins. The thought of one of their task force members seeing him like this is too humiliating to consider. 

A quiet knock from the other side of the door draws his eyelids fluttering open. Holden peeks down to see Bill’s shoes. 

“Holden? You okay in there?”

“Fine.” 

He sounds out of breath. He sounds like a wreck. 

“You sure?”

“Yes.” Holden whispers, rubbing both hands over his face to smear away stray tears. 

“Can you open the door?”

Holden draws in a deep breath through his nose. The panic simmers in his chest, quieted but not vanquished. He doesn’t want Bill to see him like this - that thought is almost worse than being exposed to their local partners on the case.

“Holden.” Bill’s voice is softer this time, but no less authoritative. “Come on. I need to see that you’re alright.”

Closing his eyes, Holden reaches up to turn the lock. The door creaks open, and swings inward until it thuds against the wall. Bill’s shoes scuff against the tile floor as he crouches down beside Holden. 

“Do you have your pills?”

Holden’s eyes creep open, lined with dampness. His jaw clenches against a bone-deep shudder of humiliation as he looks up to see Bill down on his level, his eyes worriedly tracing Holden’s sallow pallor, the lingering tears, the mild shudder running through his body. 

“I don’t need them.” Holden says, angling for a defiant tone of voice. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t have them on you?”

Holden glances away, focusing on the grimy, yellow tile backing the toilet. His chest squeezes again, but this time he can’t differentiate between tears and recurring panic. 

“Holden …”

“I said I’m fine.” Holden says, sharply, holding up a defensive hand. “You don’t need to lecture me.”

“I think I do.”

Silence settles as Holden fights back the wave of emotion with his teeth scraping at his lower lip. His eyes sting, tears threatening to spill free. 

Bill’s hand gently touches his shoulder again, the warm weight of it settling like a load of bricks on a fragile spider’s web. Holden wrenches away, his lungs seizing as the contact, which he's sure Bill had meant to be reassuring, radiates across the low-burnt fuse of his composure like fire. He clutches at his chest in an attempt to ward off the incoming wave of breathless pain, but he can't stop the series of jagged gasps that stagger from his throat.

“Fuck.” Bill says, his tone reflecting Holden’s panic. “Holden, you’re not okay. What do you want me to do?”

Holden sucks in a few deep breaths, struggling to find his voice in between the scraped gulps for air. 

“I want … I want you … t-to leave … me alone.”

Bill is silent as Holden’s hiccuped, raspy breaths reverberate in the cold, hollow acoustics of the bathroom. He crouches beside Holden for a few more moments before climbing to his feet. 

“Let me know if you change your mind.” 

Holden doesn’t look up until he hears Bill’s footfalls retreat across the bathroom, and the door slam shut behind him. When he’s alone, he leans forward to swing the stall door shut again, sequestering him from any prying eyes. 

After the second wave passes, he stumbles to his feet, and shuffles weakly to the row of sinks. His face is drained of color, his eyes red-rimmed and leaking with overwrought tears. He puts his hand in his pocket again, and silently curses himself. 

~

They walked away from Atlanta in tatters. While the headlines read success, Bill and Holden went home exhausted, empty, and pushed past the breaking point. Holden hadn’t been surprised to find out three months later that Nancy had left Bill while they were still on the case, and that Bill hadn’t bothered to tell him about it. In the end, it came up in casual conversation. Holden asked something about summer vacation, and Bill remarked - as casually as one can about such a topic - that he and Nancy hadn’t gone on any trips because of the divorce. 

Holden told himself that it doesn’t hurt that Bill barely trusts him anymore. It’s a two-way street after all - he’s done everything in his power to conceal the severity of his panic disorder from Bill, and he figures they’re even. Divorces and pills, scattered relationships and an inability to form new ones. It’s all equally humiliating. They’re both allowed their own private hells, their solitary confinement, their bitter loneliness.

Holden is too tired from battling off anxiety attacks to find the will to break the status quo, and he’d thought Bill was fine with the way things were too - until today. He’d shown more compassion towards Holden in their brief, five-minute conversation in the bathroom than he had during the entirety of the Atlanta case. 

That evening, Holden leaves the precinct early in a bid to get a decent amount of sleep before the case starts back up tomorrow. While he showers off the dried, cold sweat from the panic attack and the grueling, Nevada heat, he leans into the cool tile for support. The drum of the water across his shoulders eases some of the lingering tension, a welcome, gentle touch on his body. He stays in the shower until the water runs cold, and dries off quickly before getting straight into his pajamas. 

He thinks about ordering room service before realizing he has no appetite for food. Instead, he crawls into bed, and stares dully at the television as a sitcom chatters exuberantly across the screen in technicolor. He’s just starting to drift off into exhausted dreamland when a faint knock at the door pulls him back into consciousness. 

Stifling a groan, he sits up, and kicks the covers back. 

The knock comes again, demanding an answer.

Climbing out of bed, he marches across the room to throw the door open, but his gathering vitriol comes to a cold halt in the back of his throat when he sees Bill standing on the other side. 

“Hi.” Bill says, softly. 

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Can I come in?”

Holden casts him a baffled frown as he tries to come up with a protest. He has a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.  _ A fucking lecture. At nine o’clock at night.  _

“Bill, I’m really tired.” He says, leaning against the doorframe. “Is this something that can wait till tomorrow?”

“I don’t think so.”

Holden sighs. “If this is about my pills …”

“Do you really want to talk about this in the hallway?”

Holden meets Bill’s challenging stare that comes with an unspoken conclusion:  _ And we are going to talk about it.  _ He succumbs with another weary sigh. Pulling the door open, he stands aside to let Bill across the threshold. 

As Bill shuffles past him, he smells clean just like the hotel soap that Holden had used, but with the overlying tang of aftershave. He stops just a few feet away from Holden, and turns to cast him a stern gaze, faded blue cloaked in shadow and concern. 

“Do you want to tell me what you were thinking?” He asks, spreading his hands. 

Holden crosses his arms. 

“This could compromise the investigation. If you have an attack while we’re out in the field, say, or in an interview with a suspect, it could interfere with-”

“I said I’m fine.” Holden interrupts, his chest burning with sudden anger. “I have it under control.”

“Do you? Because I seem to remember you lying on the bathroom floor, practically fucking paralyzed. Why would you leave your meds at home?”

“I didn’t ask you to follow me in there. I went into the bathroom because I anticipated it. And I handled it. Now it’s fine. No one on the task force is any wiser.”

“Yeah? And what about next time?”

“There won’t be one.” 

“How can you guarantee that?”

“Maybe I can’t, but the possibility would be a lot greater if you would leave me alone.”

They stare across the room at one another in a silent, stifling deadlock. Bill’s eyes are flaring with frustration, but Holden is too tired to care. He drained, worn out, and finished with nothing left to support him for the day besides his own enraged humiliation; and he almost wants to tip Bill past the point of self-control, just to see him crash and burn right beside him. 

“Why do I even fucking try with you?” Bill says, at last, putting up his hands. “You’re like a fucking five year old.”

“Fuck you, Bill. You have no idea what it’s like to live with this, and I don’t remember you giving a shit in Atlanta when I really could have used your help.”

Bill’s frown deepens as he scoffs in disbelief. “Seriously? You’re bringing that shit back up? You know what I had going on then. I can’t fucking babysit you ever day, every hour-”

“You were gone half the time. You wouldn’t tell me what was going on.” Holden protests, his voice rising with astonished anger, “What was I supposed to think?”

“Great. So now you hate me.” Bill says, his jaw rippling with an enraged clench. “Because I had to take care of my son and not you for once in my goddamn life.”

Holden’s mouth slips partially open in disbelief, his chest quivering with a clutching mix of disbelief and wounded pain. 

“God, I’m really sorry, Bill.” He says, his throat thickening. “I’m sorry I’m such an inconvenience to you.”

Bill lets out a frustrated sigh, and pinches at the bridge of his nose. He shakes his head, and when his eyes lift from the carpet, the irritation is still alive and simmering in their gray-blue depths. 

“You’re not.” He says, “That’s not what I was saying, and you know it. I’m trying to fucking help you, and you’re just too stubborn to accept it.”

Seething, he strides past Holden on his way to the door, and clips Holden’s shoulder in his haste. The slight collision ripples through Holden’s body like an earthquake, the pin sliding free of a hand grenade and dropping, hitting, shattering him. Emotion lunges at his chest and throat, driving stinging, intractable tears to his eyes before he can attempt to swallow them down. 

Bill yanks the door open, and Holden spins around to see him exiting the room through blurry, swimming eyes. He catches the door before it can slam shut on Bill’s heels, and puts one foot out into the hall after him. 

“Bill, wait.” 

His raspy, trembling plea makes both of them pause, shocked that it had even emerged.

Holden draws in a hitched breath, and presses the back of his hand to his mouth to suppress the mounting, crushing emotion. 

Bill turns slowly, his jaw shifting into a defensive set even as his eyes soften beneath the muted, buttery lights of the corridor. 

“I’m sorry.” Holden whispers, his voice muffled behind his hand. 

Their gazes hold, and Holden’s vision clears a bit when the gathering tear breaks free and streaks hotly down his cheek. The less blurry image of Bill softens, sharp edges melting away, anger receding in his eyes. He walks back to where Holden is quivering in the doorway; he doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t stop either when Holden pulls the door open further to let him back inside. 

Holden takes a shuffled step backwards as Bill slips into the room and lets the door click shut behind him. His chest hammers, panicked, vulnerable need crowding in the back of his mind and urging him to close the space between them. He’d never wanted Bill to see this - how broken down and exhausted he is - but he’s here now; and he looks like relief, like some stalwart refuge for Holden to throw the wreckage of himself upon. 

Bill moves closer, watching Holden’s tremulous stance closely, as if he’s edging towards a wounded animal. When he’s no more than a few inches away, he reaches up to gently grasp Holden’s upper arms. 

Holden drops his head, shuddering at the slight contact. Bill’s hands are warm, strong, drawing him closer, and he can’t resist even if the touch is like fire against his raw emotions. He collapses forward into the embrace, burying his face in Bill’s chest before he can give himself the opportunity to wrench away like he had in the bathroom. 

Bill’s arms curl around him, one palm bracing against the middle of his spine while the other perfectly cradles his nape. 

Holden sobs quietly as he feels himself come apart, like he’s just a house of cards and Bill had removed the last, slim piece of foundation with a delicate touch. All of the repressed fear he’d been holding back since they arrived in Nevada comes gushing free, tearing itself from his chest in choked sobs and draining in stinging streaks from his eyelids. He hangs onto Bill’s shirt with trembling fists, and holds himself closer to the embrace, afraid that it will end at any moment, that Bill will pull away, disgusted by this pathetic display; but each minute marches past them, one after the next, and Bill doesn’t try to move or retract the offered fortitude of his arms. He holds onto Holden’s trembling body until the worst of the breakdown subsides, and Holden is sniffling quietly in his arms. 

As the emotion tapers off into raw aftermath, Holden slowly lifts his head. He left a wet patch on the shoulder of Bill’s shirt, but his cheeks are still a slick, flushed mess. Fresh, mortified tears crush the corners of his aching eyes as he lifts his gaze to Bill’s. 

“Fuck. I’m sorry.” He whispers, his voice hitched and hoarse. 

“Don’t apologize.” Bill whispers, his hand shifting from Holden’s nape to soothe his damp cheek. 

“Please …” Holden chokes out, meekly, pressing his eyes shut against the ashamed tears. “Don’t go … don’t leave me.”

“I’m not. I’m right here.”

Holden nods, trying to swallow back the terrified lump in his throat even as Bill’s fingers against his cheek threaten to trigger another wave of uncontrollable emotion, this one less tearful but just as shameful. Bill’s arms are around him, fingers on his skin, so close that he can feel the heat of Bill’s breath cooling his tear-stained cheeks, and it feels good; it feels like redemption on his untouched body, a hollow, aching vessel left alone and needlessly punished in solitude for too long. He can’t remember the last time someone held him like this, the last time they promised not to leave; he can’t remember the last time he wanted them to stay. 

Holden’s eyelids flutter open again, and a single tear escapes in a hot path down his cheek. His vision is clear again, everything laid open. Bill’s eyes are on him, warm with concern, hotter with a possessive, protective streak. 

“Stay with me.” Holden murmurs, leaning closer, nudging his forehead against Bill’s. 

Bill draws in a shaky breath, his fingers curling around the fabric of Holden’s t-shirt at the curve of his spine. 

“Holden …”

Holden kisses him then, hard, sloppy, and desperate. It isn’t pretty. His cheeks are wet and puffy and his nose is stuffy from crying. He’s clinging and pitiful, throwing the shattered pieces of himself at Bill’s feet, and praying that Bill won’t break him even further with rejection. It isn’t suave or subtle, but he doesn’t care; he just wants to be touched. 

For a long moment, Bill’s mouth is frozen against Holden’s, absorbing the shock of contact with no more than a muffled grunt. Slowly, as Holden presses the kiss persistently to his mouth, he parts his lips to draw in a shuddering breath, and gradually angle his mouth in against Holden’s. 

Holden moans as Bill’s lips move against his own in a simmering stroke. First his upper lip, then the lower, light suction, hot breath, slick saliva. It’s so gentle and slow that he can hardly breathe, can hardly do more than shudder against the strength of Bill’s arms bearing him up. He feels himself melting open as Bill’s kisses deepen, pleasuring him with long, suckling caresses; and finally, he takes the timid of offering of Holden’s tongue, swipes his own tongue across it, and suckles it into his mouth right along with Holden’s tingling lower lip. 

Holden chokes softly as Bill gently pushes him up against the wall, pinning him in place with a broad hand around his jaw. His desperation eases, panicked fear of rejection dissipating beneath Bill’s attentive response. He relaxes, letting Bill’s mouth set the pace of the kiss, and kissing back only when Bill’s urgent strokes retreat into languid pressure. 

Minutes seem to pass, and Holden’s mouth burns with friction; but he doesn’t want it to end. When Bill begins to pull back, he throws both arms around his neck to pull him back in, and smothers the faint, grunted protest with his own assertive kiss. 

Bill pushes back against the hungry stroke of Holden’s mouth, snaring his teeth at Holden’s raw lower lip. He draws back, nipping softly at the plump flesh until Holden lets go with a quiet whimper. His breath seethes across Holden’s cheeks when he retreats, staying close enough that their noses brush. 

Holden’s eyelids creep open, finding Bill’s sharp blue eyes clinging to him from barely an inch away. He draws in a shuddering breath, and purses his lips over a rising moan. 

“Christ, Holden. What are you doing?” Bill whispers, his voice a low, choked moan. 

“I don’t know. I think I’m losing my mind.” 

Bill scoffs, quietly. “I think so, too.”

“I haven’t had sex in over six months.” Holden whispers, “I think I want you to touch me.”

“Oh, is that the only reason why? Because I’m your last option?”

“No. I want you. I want you so bad.”

Bill begins to pull away, ducking his head with a quiet, tortured groan, but Holden wraps his arms tighter around his neck. 

“Please, don’t leave me.” 

“I shouldn’t …”

“Please, stay. We don’t have to … just don’t leave me alone.”

Bill’s gaze rises back to Holden’s, stabilizing with clear, undiluted intent. “Holden, if I stay I’m going to do something I regret.”

“Why will you regret it?”

“So many reasons I can’t even begin to-”

“But you want to?” 

Bill’s frown deepens, and he shakes his head. “Don’t make this hard. I’m trying to do the right thing.”

“You wanted to help me. You’re helping.” 

“Not like this.”

“Yes.” Holden murmurs, leaning closer. “Kiss me again.”

Bill groans just before he complies, and his mouth lathers across Holden’s in wet hunger. 

Holden moans, eagerly opening his mouth to this harder, more determined caress. Some of the gentility falls away as Bill grasps at his hips, pushing him back against the wall and into submission while his mouth comes down. Holden complies, letting his body go limp in Bill’s embrace, letting himself feel every sensation crashing across his starved, shuddering body. 

Bill’s tongue curls into his mouth, a quick, heated stroke, but it’s enough for all the strength to drain out of Holden’s knees. He sinks back against the wall, clutching at Bill’s chest and losing his footing. 

Drawing back, Bill pants quietly against his mouth. “Are you okay?”

Holden swallows hard, shaking his head. “You’re making me so weak.”

Bill leans away, his expression growing concerned. 

“No, I like it.” Holden murmurs, hanging onto him. “Don’t stop.” 

Their gazes meet for a silent, simmering moment before Bill loops an arm around his waist and drags him away from the wall. Holden tightens his arms around Bill’s neck, and lifts his feet off the ground as Bill carries them swiftly toward the bed. He gets his knees up around Bill’s hips just as they reach the mattress and spill across it, and Bill lands in between his thighs, his hips bearing down hard. 

Holden gasps as the sudden burst of contact chafes across his groin and ripples out through his body like a shockwave. Heat coils low in his belly, building towards an aching pulse, a type of aroused, manic desperation that he hasn’t felt in far too long; suddenly, his veins are flush with it, and he feels high, floating far above his panic and his desolate loneliness. 

Bill’s mouth smothers his rising cry with a long, hard kiss that is firm but not brutal, deliberate but not harsh. It tracks across his panting lips in gradual, persistent strokes, tasting every trembling inch before delving inside with the heated push of his tongue. 

Holden goes weak, his lips drifting apart in the same moment that his thighs fall open against the mattress. Bill reaches up to pry Holden’s arms from around his neck and gently pin them to the mattress above his head, and he doesn’t resist. He can feel his blood surging through his wrists beneath the steady pressure of Bill’s fists curling around them, shackling him in a warm, heady prison that he has no intention of trying to escape from. 

The kiss stretches on for a moment longer before Bill sucks off of Holden’s buzzing lower lip. His left hand stays firmly coiled around Holden’s wrist while the right hand reaches down to tug the hem of Holden’s shirt up. Holden arches his back to let the fabric ride up his chest, and lets out a choked groan when Bill’s fingers brush his nipple. 

“Jesus …” He whispers, his body thrilling with the slight contact. 

Bill bends his head to kiss Holden’s chest, leaving a row of slow, simmering kisses down his sternum, against his puckering nipple, below the heaving hollow of his ribcage. His cleanly shaven chin slides down Holden’s tender skin, offering no friction beside the wet, heated press of his lips. The kiss follows a straight line down to Holden’s navel and below, where the scarce trail of hair leads to sensitive, quivering skin and the waistband of his trousers. 

Holden whimpers through each kiss, his body overwhelmed and reveling in the warm, searching sensation after long months subjected to his own touch and nothing more. He feels hungry for more even as he’s swollen and raw with the introductory row of kisses humming like brands across his belly; and he doesn’t know if he can take much more, but he wants to find out. He wants it all right now, Bill’s fingertips barely grazing his hard cock and tipping him over the edge. 

“Is this okay?” Bill whispers, his hand nudging against Holden’s inner thigh and creeping closer towards the swell of his erection. 

Holden nods and bites his lower lip, hardly trusting his voice. 

Bill’s hand settles over his clothed erection, and Holden’s back arches taut. His mouth stretches open, expelling a strangled cry. His hips writhe, unable to contain the arousal sparking like flares between his thighs, unable to stem the rampant need exploding from that single touch. 

“Shh, I’ve got you.” Bill murmurs, dropping a kiss against Holden’s heaving belly. 

Holden purses his lips over rising groans as this promise is followed by Bill’s hands deftly stripping him out of his trousers. His briefs are left to contend with his throbbing erection, cotton stretched tight across the jutting head. 

“Ohh,” Bill whispers, low and tortured, when he lays eyes on the state of Holden’s barely clothed cock. 

Holden presses his eyes shut, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment and need. He feels like he’s so hard he could come with only a few strokes, reduced to the undisciplined child Bill had compared him to. He wants to try to explain: _ it’s just been so long since anyone touched him, since he felt this turned on, since he even wanted to experience orgasm, how he just never feels that good when he’s alone and touching himself.  _ But he can’t say any of that because Bill is gently divesting him of the briefs, and his cock is bare against the cool kiss of air, clutching and quivering in desperate throes of intense arousal. 

“Please …” Holden moans, his heels digging into the mattress as Bill lets him lay there writhing, untouched. 

His eyelids slip open to see Bill over top him, his eyes turned down to watch Holden’s cock agonize through one deep throb after the next. His jaw is clenched and his nostrils are flared with slow, steadying breaths as he smooths a hand up Holden’s inner thigh. 

Holden jumps, his whole body seizing against the gradual sensation of the warm, calloused palm grazing his thigh. He clutches a hand over his mouth, smothering the mangled sob that wants to break free from the desperation climbing his chest. 

“Please …” The words seeps past the clutch of his fingers again, dwindling down into a helpless whimper. 

Bill’s hand hesitates at the junction of his thigh and hip for a few, torturous seconds before reaching up to graze the length of Holden’s cock with his fingertips. 

“Ohh!” Holden cries out, his spine arching wildly. “Bill .. fuck-”

“Shh, I barely touched you.” Bill murmurs, his mouth faintly tipping in a smile. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t …” Holden whimpers, his feet pushing into the sheets for traction, “Oh God … I’m so … it hurts-”

“You want me to stop?”

“No!” Holden cries, his throat choking with panic at the thought of his lovely, burning sensation being taken away from him. “Please, keep going.”

Bill’s fingers curl gently around the shaft, taking a firm hold before stroking up the length in one, long drag. 

The touch crushes Holden, breaks him down in every good and thrilling way possible. He feels his breath leave his lungs as pleasure rises, a cresting tide that’s held back in his reeling mind by what feels like a matchstick. He writhes in choked silence against the sheets, his eyes squeezing shut against brilliant pleasure, his mouth hanging open in hollow, aroused distress. Every muscle in his groin clamps down with a pre-orgasmic shudder, leaving him dangling on the verge of climax when Bill’s strokes ease to an unbearably slow pace. 

“Oh God, please …” Holden pants, hips bucking against the gradual caress. 

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter how fast or how slow Bill goes; he can feel it surging up through him, threatening to explode in a matter of seconds when they’ve barely just begun. He doesn’t want to admit it, but just the thought of Bill touching him was enough to incite a delirious panic. Now that he is touching Holden, no matter how tempered or disciplined, he’s rapidly pushing Holden into a premature orgasm that he’d meant to stave off, even for just a few minutes. 

“Oh, wait …” Holden moans, slipping his eyes open to cast Bill a pleading gaze. “Wait, no …”

“No?”

“Oh God.” Holden groans as a fresh wave of arousal strikes him. “I feel like … oh, I’m gonna cum. Bill, no-”

“It’s okay.” Bill soothes, pressing a kiss to Holden’s perspiring forehead as he continues to stroke his cock in deliberate pulls. “You need this, hm?”

“Yes, but I-”

Holden’s protest chokes off as Bill’s hand quickens, gently but firmly pushing him over the edge. With a staggered cry, the bone-deep spasms of bliss strike him hard. His hips lurch up from the mattress and into Bill’s caressing hand, and everything clamps down tight. He releases in hot, steady gushes that splatter his belly and chest over and over again and drain him dry while the starry rain of bliss showers behind his clenched eyelids. Bill strokes him all the way through it, whispering raspy encouragement against his temple, and milking him of every last drop of pent-up release. 

When Holden finally sinks down against the sheets, trembling and tender, he carefully uncurls his fingers from the wilting shaft. He crawls out from between Holden’s limp thighs, and Holden mustered a faint, protesting whimper from the back of his throat at the loss of contact.

Bill retrieves the kleenex box from the night stand and wipes off his hand before using another handful to clean Holden’s belly and chest. Holden accepts one of the tissues to clean away the drizzles of release on his cock and the still leaking head. 

After Bill discards the wadded tissues in the trash, he drags Holden’s pliant, drained body up against the pillows with him. They settle down with Holden curled under his arm and against his chest, his body still gently shivering in the aftermath. Pulling the sheets over them, Bill cradles Holden closer, and presses a kiss to his forehead. His fingers wind absently through Holden’s hair, soothing away the last of his worries. 

Snuggled up against him, Holden sinks into an oppressive wave of exhaustion. His body buzzes with a contented, buoyant warmth, and he can’t remember the tension he had carried throughout the day, nor the terrifying, cold grip of panic. 

One thought rises before he can drift off to sleep, and he reaches down to feel for Bill’s crotch. 

“What about you?” He mumbles, feeling the half-hard lump of Bill’s cock beneath his trousers. 

Bill pries Holden’s hand away from his groin, and wraps it up in his palm. He tucks Holden’s hand against his chest where he pins it down firmly. 

“Don’t worry about me. Go to sleep.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

“You’re exhausted. We can talk about this later.”

Holden falls quiet, too tired to argue. His body is already drifting off into sleep, drained and blissful. Usually when he’s trying to fall asleep, it’s around this time, right when he’s slipping into oblivion, that some terrified thought - some aspect of the profile he’d missed, some victim’s face, some indefinable shroud of dread - punches him in the gut and forces him back awake. Tonight, with Bill’s arms wrapped securely around him and his body soothed and cared for, he sinks into the warm darkness without delay; somewhere, down in the depths of his dreams, he recognizes this old, forgotten feeling as something like happiness. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm [prinxcesskayy](https://prinxcesskayy.tumblr.com//) on Tumblr!  
> 


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